Crossway Partners with Local Churches to Share the Good News this Christmas

Contact Angie Cheatham: 630-868-6043 or media@crossway.org.

August 20, 2009

Goal Set to Reach One Million Homes with the Gift of God’s Word

WHEATON, IL (August 21, 2009)—Crossway has launched a nationwide effort to provide churches with a creative and cost-effective way to reach one million homes with the gospel this Christmas. Crossway’s Share the Good News of Christmas gift bags include an ESV Outreach New Testament Christmas Edition, a Christmas tract written by Max Lucado, thirty days of free access to the ESV Online Study Bible, and a customizable invitation to Christmas services or a special seasonal event. The kits retail for $1 a piece, and are sold in case lots of 50 through Christian retail stores across the country.

According to Crossway executive vice president Geoff Dennis, the gift bags can be used by individuals, para-church ministries, or individual ministries within a larger church. “Ideally,” Dennis says, “a church will decide to adopt Share the Good News of Christmas as a way of reaching out to friends and neighbors during the season when people are most open to visiting church. But even if the recipient doesn’t attend a church during the Christmas season, they’ll still have an opportunity to be impacted by God’s Word through the New Testament, online access to the ESV Study Bible, or the gospel tract which are all included in the bag.”

After purchasing the kits from a local Christian retail store, churches can print or hand-write on the invitations, inviting the recipients to a seasonal event, such as a Christmas musical at the church, a Christmas coffee in a home, or a Christmas Eve service. “We’re hearing about all kinds of creative ways churches around the country intend to utilize the Share the Good News of Christmas bags,” says Dennis, “including church choirs who will use them to invite people to their Christmas musical program, and large Sunday School classes who will host neighborhood Christmas parties and pass them out in the neighborhood as they go Christmas caroling door-to-door.” Churches utilizing or considering Share the Good News of Christmas are encouraged to join the Share the Good News of Christmas group on Facebook where Crossway invites people to share how they are using the bags in their community.

Crossway is hopeful that Share the Good News of Christmas will become a key part of thousands of church’s outreach programs this Christmas season. The initial enthusiastic response has encouraged the company to go back to press on the various gift bag contents even before the first cartons began shipping in mid-August. “The driving passion behind the Share the Good News of Christmas program is to reach a massive number of people with the gospel and God’s Word this Christmas,” says Lane Dennis, president of Crossway. “My prayer and my dream is that we would reach a million homes this Christmas.  We can only begin to imagine what an amazing impact for eternity this could have – if tens of thousands would come to know Christ as their Savior this Christmas as a result of this partnership in the gospel.”

To receive a sample Share the Good News of Christmas gift bag, churches can contact their local Christian retail store. For more information about the program and gift bag contents, and for resources to promote the program in your church, go to www.goodnewsofchristmas.org.

# # #